Romo and Co. have mastered art of winning closing games

ARLINGTON – A three-word mantra delivered daily by the coaches drove the Dallas Cowboys during the offseason.

“Finish, finish, finish – I’m telling you we heard that so much it was unbelievable,” wide receiver Dez Bryant said. “It stuck with us and we got it in our minds, ‘We have to finish. We have to finish games better.’ I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing lately.”

Boy, have they.

The surging Cowboys (8-6) are tied with the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants for the NFC East lead and control their own playoff destiny in large part because they have finally mastered the art of closing games.

Dallas blew fourth quarter leads in five of its eight losses in 2011. This season, the Cowboys have notched five fourth-quarter comebacks, including a 27-24 overtime win against Pittsburgh on Sunday in which they overcame a seven-point deficit. It was the third game in a row in which they’ve rallied in the fourth.

Dallas tied it 24-24 with 6:55 left in regulation on DeMarco Murray’s 3-yard run and then won on Dan Bailey’s 21-yard field goal just 39 second into OT and two plays after Brandon Carr picked off a Ben Roethlisberger pass and returned it 36 yards to the 1.

The Cowboys also had fourth-quarter comebacks against Carolina (Oct. 21), Cleveland (Nov. 18 in OT), Philadelphia (Dec. 2) and Cincinnati (Dec. 8). And in a road game at Philadelphia, Dallas was tied 17-17 entering the fourth.

“Our football team,” Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo said, “has developed that mental toughness that knows no matter what’s going on during the game, as bad as it may look or whatever, we get to that fourth quarter, we have a shot to win the game.

“…These (close) games come down to a possession or two. If you do the right things, you win the game….Our football team has started to understand what it takes to win in those situations. You got to execute under pressure, you got to create pressure defensively and you got to do your job.

If Dallas wins its final two games, it will advance to the playoffs as the NFC East champs for the first time since 2009. It won’t be easy with games against the always dangerous Drew Brees-led New Orleans Saints (6-8) on Sunday and the Redskins in Landover, Md., on Dec. 30.

But the Cowboys are confident that if these final two games go down to the wire, they will pull them out.

“You have to have a level of confidence, a level of poise, a level of composure to allow you to execute in those critical situations,” said coach Jason Garrett, whose team has won three straight and five of its last six. “You have to execute, you have to play within the system, but you also have to make plays.”

Carr did just that against the Steelers. His diving interception was his second big takeaway in as many games.

“We keep fighting as a team,” said Carr, who set up a TD in Cincinnati by intercepting an Andy Dalton pass. “We just have to weather the storm, make our adjustments and attack.”

Romo used different words to describe the same approach.

“We just put our heads down and go to work,” he said.

The come-from-behind win over the Steelers was Romo’s fifth of the season and 18th of his career, both club records. He had four come-from-behind wins in 2011, something Roger Staubach (1979), Troy Aikman (1990) and Drew Bledsoe (2005) also accomplished.

“At the end of the day, whether we are down three, whether we are tied, whether we are down 10, we are just going to battle and fight to get the job done,” Romo said. “By no means has it been pretty over the last six or seven games, but I do know our football knows it can compete and win late in football games. We believe we are going to go down and score or get a stop late.”